Tutanchamuns Space-Dolch

King Tut was buried with a dagger made of an iron that literally came from space, says a new study into the composition of the iron blade from the sarcophagus of the boy king. Using non-invasive, portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, a team of Italian and Egyptian researchers confirmed that the iron of the dagger placed on the right thigh of King Tut's mummified body a has meteoric origin. The team, which include researchers from Milan Polytechnic, Pisa University and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, detailed their results in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science.

Since its discovery in 1925, themeteoritic origin of the iron dagger blade from the sarcophagus of the ancient EgyptianKing Tutankhamun (14th C. BCE) has been the subject of debate and previous analysesyielded controversial results. We show that the co mposition of the blade (Fe plus 10.8 wt%Ni and 0.58 wt% Co), accurately determined through portable x-ray ﬂuorescencespectrometry, strongly supports its meteoritic origin. In agreement with recent results ofmetallographic analysis of ancient iron artifacts from Gerze h, our study conﬁrms thatancient Egyptians attributed great value to meteoritic iron for the production of preciousobjects.